


Against All Odds

by jillyfae, Raphael_diSanto



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Epilogue, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/pseuds/jillyfae, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raphael_diSanto/pseuds/Raphael_diSanto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens after the end?  A new beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mschignon](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mschignon).



> Our friend mschignon has a lovely Shepard. And she was very upset by the ending ~~s~~ of ME3, so we decided she deserved a better one, that fit within the scenes the game gave her.

"Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shi-"

The bulkheads groaned and shuddered like the death throes of some metal beast, the overstressed field dampeners whined their cacophonous chorus of protest, the flight displays screamed angry orange and red maydays, all juggling for attention, and Joker was praying to every god he could think of that the _Normandy_ would hold together.

"I am receiving alerts from sections four, seven and nine, and breaches along the lower hull, Jeff." EDI's cool silvery voice never sounded stressed or ruffled. _Guess I get to be stressed and ruffled for the both of us?_

"I can see that, EDI!" Joker's jaw tightened as his fingers flew over the controls, dancing on a sensor here, barely brushing a touchpad there. This was what he was born for. The _Normandy_ was the best bird he'd ever flown, and he was certainly the only pilot in the galaxy who could get the best out of her, but even he was tempted to start mixing bribes and threats in with his prayers.

"Lock down that breach on section 71," he snapped, without taking his darting eyes from the fountaining displays in front of him.

The _Normandy_ rocked, as another explosion, dull and muffled, echoed through the ship.

"Shit. What was that? The internal dampeners must be running out of-" he started, but was cut off by Gabriella Daniel's singsong accent coming over the intercom.

"Joker? This is Engineer Daniels. What's happening up there? We just had three cooling conduits and a surge interface blow at the same time."

"We just got hit by hell on wheels," Joker replied, his eyes still locked to the consoles. "Just hang on and give me every spare watt of power you have."

"I'll do my best," she said, then the comm went silent.

_Her best? What happened to the other engineers down there with her? For that matter, why was she on the comm and not Chief Adams?_ Joker thrust the thought out of his head. More important things to worry about right now. Like trying to stop the _Normandy's_ out-of-control rudderless cartwheeling through the empty reaches of space.

The deck lurched again. _I guess this is what they mean by flying by the seat of your pants._

"What the hell?"

Joker didn't even have to turn around. Alenko's voice was pretty distinctive. Probably hanging on to one of the bulkheads, with the way the _Normandy_ was throwing herself around. The stars in the sky, visible out of the for'ard viewports, wheeled crazily across his vision. The _Normandy_ generated her own internal gravity field, courtesy of the Mass Effect cores built into her superstructure, but they weren't designed to handle stresses and acrobatics of this magnitude. She was literally tumbling out of control, heading for god-knows-where at something significantly greater than the speed of light.

"That was the Citadel," Joker managed. "Boom." He stabbed at another control, transferred power from one system to another. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, that's all this was. A one-handed man juggling two dozen fragile china plates.

"The Citadel? But Shepard was on th-"

"I _know_ , Alenko. You want to help, get on that recovery console over there and take care of subsection D. You can court-martial me later for giving orders to a Major."

There was a snort from behind Joker, and then the sound of the Major strapping himself into the chair and working at the console.

"I have boosted power to the primary preservation relays around the Tantalus drive core, Jeff," EDI said.

Joker felt a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach. Strapped into the pilot's seat, he hadn't moved, but he'd spent most of his adult life on starships. He knew what that feeling meant.

"You rerouted it from the internal gravity generators, didn't you?"

"It was the most efficient solution," she replied.

"S'gonna make the cartwheeling worse," he muttered, and true enough, the external movement of the _Normandy_ could be felt more pervasively throughout the ship.

"It was that or reduce power from the mass effect fields holding the hull together." EDI's tone was always mild, but this time, it sounded like a slight rebuke.

"Wasn't arguing with you, pretty co-pilot, just saying." Joker had the oddest impulse to grin at her, despite the circumstances. _Wait, no, focus is good..._ "I've almost got it under control. Just a little more power to the starboard thrusters...." Joker stabbed triumphantly at first one control, then another, and slowly the _Normandy's_ bucking and heaving started to settle down.

"I have fires on all decks," Alenko said. "Dispatching cleanup teams. We through the worst of it?"

Joker nodded. "As far as I can tell. That was a hell of a blast. I don't know what the Commander did in there, but something went bang."

EDI said, "Sensor logs from the time of the event showed that the size of the explosion was enough to completely destroy the Citadel and the Crucible."

Joker twisted in his seat to look at Kaidan. The Major's face was its usual impassive self, showing no emotion, but Joker knew Kaidan well. Even he couldn't hide everything he was thinking, and his hands had just clenched tightly enough for his knuckles to turn white. Noah Shepard had been the most important person in the galaxy to Alenko for a very long time.

Which in lighter moments he'd used to find rather amusing. The woman was pretty scary, and Alenko was generally too straight-laced for his own good. 

_Some scary for company would be really nice right about now._

EDI glanced between the two of them. "I'm sorry, Jeff, Major Alenko." Her modulated voice was quiet.

There was a silence in the cockpit then, a momentary pause. Finally, Kaidan spoke, his voice thick with suppressed emotion. "We all knew this could be a one-way trip going in," he said. "Shepard, more than anyone."

"You got that right," Joker sighed. _Not going to find out more from here._ He stared helplessly at his flight controls. He waved an arm vaguely in their direction. "I'm the best pilot in the Alliance, and right now, I'm about as much use as an asari in a dick measuring contest. Everything's dead. We're lucky we're still in one piece and not suckin' vacuum."

"But we're still moving..."

"One of those shorts Daniels was talking about- Oh, you weren't here for that. _Normandy's_ drive's locked on full power. Until we get in and rig up an override we're going … that way." Joker pointed out the viewport. "Fast."

"Isn't there a manual override?"

"Yeah. It blew. We need an override to override the override."

"What about-"

"Look, Alenko. I burned the last of the auxiliary power righting this boat. Navigation's out. Comms are out. Backup systems are barely holding us together."

"Don't suppose you forgot to fill up the tank so we might just coast to a halt?" Alenko's attempt at a joke wasn't a very good one, but it was nice to see the man trying. _Apparently I am a good influence. Sort-of. Sometimes._

"Sorry, Alenko, I have lots of fuel. And right now it's all being directed into sending us that way-" Joker waved an arm vaguely -" at full speed. And I have no power to change that. No pun intended."

Kaidan nodded. "I see. So first priority is to get a team to engineering to help Adams, as you say, rig up an override to override the override."

Joker grinned a sickly lopsided grin. "Now you're getting it."

"But in the meantime... Exactly where are we heading?"

Joker stared out of the viewport and shook his head slowly. "I have no clue. No. Freaking. Clue."


	2. Chapter 2

It looked like snow.

Hackett was pretty sure it was actually ash from all the debris in space burning up in the atmosphere. But it looked surprisingly peaceful, settling over the ruins of London, putting out the fires, hiding the bodies of human and husk and Reaper alike, until they blended into the same anonymous curves and bumps in the landscape.

Which was making the search for survivors difficult.

There were a lot of people alive. He was still surprised by that. Even with the slim chance of success the Crucible seemed to promise, he'd rather assumed they'd all go out with it. He'd had plans for afterwards, contingencies, back-ups, but he hadn't actually thought he'd be around to implement any of them.

Especially not after they'd achieved a miracle and driven Harbinger off, and the Citadel had opened its arms, and they'd docked the Crucible... and nothing had happened. He'd tried to comm Shepard, only gotten static. But her channel had _stayed open_ , so the fleets had kept fighting.

And dying.

Waiting for Shepard to work another miracle. It was practically her stock in trade, after all.

And now they were looking for another one. Shepard herself.

Vancouver had already gotten their QEC working, and had called London to report that an intact fragment of the Citadel had crashed nearby, decimating an orchard. Out of which had crawled two Keepers. The pair apparently hadn't even blinked at planetary atmosphere, and had gone right out to collect the other pieces that had landed in the vicinity. Being Keepers, and not prone to speech, even if they knew what had happened they weren't about to enlighten anyone.

There were countless salvage teams all over the globe, recovering bits of the Citadel and crashed starships, destroyed Reapers, and a half dozen or so in orbit, volunteers all, running on no sleep and half-repaired ships, searching the floating ruins of the Citadel before the orbits decayed and the larger, more dangerous pieces started re-entry. The Citadel was _big_. He'd have to have the larger wreckage towed somewhere safe. Didn't want half-million ton chunks of space debris landing on New York. Or worse, somewhere in the ocean.

They were looking for answers. Looking for _her_.

Hackett had to admit, he rather expected her to find them herself. And possibly swear at them for taking so long.

He coughed to hide the urge to laugh. Anyone noticing the Commander of the Fleets looking out a window and talking or laughing to himself would probably decide they'd all gone crazy and just give it all up as a lost cause.

And now was not the time to give up. Not after they'd made it so far. Not after they'd _won_.

~-~

 _"Admiral." Alenko had called him on the comm, very shortly after the Crucible had docked._

_"What the hell's going on down there, Alenko?"_

_"Unknown, Admiral. We were taking heavy fire on our approach to the beam. Air support showed up, a Reaper with that red laser of theirs, vaporized several teams in one shot. The survivors withdrew. Major Coates and I set up a temporary Forward Operations Post. Some kind of - well, used to be a library, maybe."_

_"What about Shepard? Any news? I attempted contact when the arms opened, but I'm not sure..." The light on the console had stayed on, however, signifying an open link._

_"I... I don't know, Admiral. I had crews out looking for both her and Anderson. No sign of either of them. Right now their status is ... unknown. But I think you're right. She must be on the Citadel."_

_There'd been a crackle, and then Joker's voice had cut in. "We have to go get her. Tell him."_

_"Joker? You listening in on my secured channel?" Hackett had asked._

_"Sir. Uh, no sir. I mean, yes sir. Admiral. Only wanted to help. Admiral. Sir."_

_"How are you going to go get her? There's no more beam." Hackett frowned, trying to split his attention between the notices from the fleet and his current conversation._

_"C'mon Admiral! No one's gonna miss a cruiser in all this mess, even one I'm flying. So how 'bout I swing by London, pick up the team, and take a look-see at the Citadel. We can get in. Somehow. I'll have EDI hack a docking bay. Or something. Back me up, Alenko."_

_The Major had grunted noncommittally. But hadn't argued._

_Joker continued. "We can do this, Admiral. We're Shepard's team. If I'm right, she'll need back up. I can't just sit around and do nothing with my thumb up my - .. "_

_"I get the picture, Joker."_

_"So, can we? Sir?"_

_There had been something in his voice. Hackett couldn't put a finger on it, but he knew Joker. "You're already there, aren't you?"_

_There had been a very telling silence. Then, "If I say yes, are you gonna yell at me in your Admiral voice?"_

_Hackett had felt his lips twitch. Incorrigible pilot. They usually were, but the really good ones were just as good as they thought they were, so they got away with it._

_"I don't have time for games, Joker."_

_There was a sigh. "Then yes. We're already here, Admiral. She's in there. She needs us. Let us go in and help her." Hackett had never heard Joker quite so earnest, before. "And EDI is already trying to decrypt the docking codes."_

_"Joker, I need every single ship I have in the combined fleets right here right now, buying Shepard time. How are you even going to find her? The Citadel's a damn big place."_

_There was another pause, another silence that spoke volumes._

_"What aren't you telling me, Joker? You better come clean with me or damn straight I'm going to use my Admiral voice. Maybe I'll use my 'Flight Lieutenant Moreau, you're on suspension for disobeying a direct order voice' on you."_

_"Weeeelllll," Joker's voice came over the comm system slowly, hesitantly. "You remember that Cerberus assassin, Kai Leng?"_

_"Sure, I remember him. What's he got to do with this?"_

_"Well, Miranda Lawson, that Cerberus woman, you remember her, too?"_

_"Yes. I remember her, too, Joker. She's working for us now. Get to the point."_

_"She is? That's kinda... uh, something."_

_"Joker..." Hackett's tone held a warning._

_"Oh. Right. Anyway, she-" Joker's voice died, midsentence. Then, "- Holy shit, are you seeing that?"_

_"Seeing what?"_

_"They all stopped. Stopped shooting."_

_Already the reports were coming in from all corners of the battle. The turians, the asari, the salarian, the geth, all reporting that the Reapers had stopped shooting. Even the husks had stopped charging. They were just hanging there, in space. Standing there, on the ground. Almost like the universe itself was waiting for something to happen._

~-~

The pause had been maybe thirty seconds. No more. And then, like a flower blossoming in spring, a ball of flame had consumed the Citadel. It had started right in the center, where the Crucible had docked, at the spire. A lightning fast cascade of color raced down the arms, as the Crucible drew power from the entire citadel, bright Omega neon and crystal Illium clarity. The presidium ring lit up in fire and blood and then the shockwave was upon them.

Hackett remembered shouting orders, calling for a full retreat and withdrawal to safe distance. Even now, twelve hours after the explosion, he was still getting reports of damaged ships, and crash landings on Earth. The last he saw of the _Normandy_ had been Joker pulling a fast one-eighty and trying to outrun the blast. If any ship could have done it, it would have been the _Normandy_. If they made it.. they'd be back soon, to help.

 _He never did finish that explanation. What the hell was all that about Lawson and Leng?_  
Hackett frowned. He didn't like mysteries.

_There'll be time to ask him later. When he gets back. If he's as good as he thinks he is, maybe they rode the shockwave..._

The Admiral snorted softly. He'd never been an optimist. Recent experience seemed to be trying to convert him into believing in six impossible things before breakfast, however. 

The entire galaxy had rallied behind Shepard.

They'd built the Crucible.

_And it had worked._

The Reapers were all dead.

Earth wasn't.

Adding all that up, Shepard somehow being alive in the remnants of the Citadel didn't seem that far-fetched.

"Sir!" Hackett turned slowly on his heels, as Lieutenant Waterford, his head of communications. practically slid through the door, boots scraping against the floor.

Hackett raised an eyebrow. "Lieutenant?"

"Sir. We've found a signal."

"There's lots of signals out there, Lieutenant. Why is this one important?"

"This one's not one of ours, sir. Ensign MacAllister brought it to me, and I've already double-checked the ident with everyone. It's no one's. And it's coming from Citadel debris, not one of our salvage crews."

"So what is it?"

Waterford frowned. "We don't know."

 _A homing beacon?_ Hackett clenched his jaw "Then find out, Lieutenant. Send a crew. And make sure they have a guard detail. I don't want to hear they got chewed up by leftover husks. Pretty sure those things can survive in a vacuum."

"But all the Reapers are dead, Admiral. You saw it yourself."

Hackett fixed him with a glare. "Do _you_ want to write the condolence letters to their families because _you_ assumed there were no hostiles at the location of a strange homing signal? No? I didn't think so. Now double-time it, Lieutenant."

Waterford threw a salute that could have sliced through Silaris armor plating and left, as ordered, on the double.

_'All human wisdom is summed up in these two words, wait and hope.' Smart man, Dumas. And here I am, doing more of both than I ever expected._

Not for the first time Hackett wished he was out there with the search parties, instead of stuck here on the makeshift command center that he'd commandeered in the _SSV Orizaba_. But duty called, and this was where he could do the most good. Directing and delegating. An Admiral's job. Leave the salvage and searching to those highly-trained teams with the million-credit skills.

"Admiral!" Waterford's voice on the commlink was urgent, demanding, interrupting Hackett's train of thought.

"Hackett here."

"It's her, Admiral. They've found her. It's the Commander. Medtechs say... wait... I think she's alive. Barely, but she's breathing. Hold for confirmation."

The seconds ticked past, slow and agonizing. And then Waterford spoke again, words that Hackett had been waiting to hear for the last twelve hours, and the Admiral let out the breath that he didn't realize he'd been holding.

"Status confirmed, Admiral. Commander Shepard is alive."


	3. Chapter 3

It was... Discomfiting. As good a word as any, Kaidan decided. Being alone, in Shepard's quarters. _She called them our quarters, but they're not. Not yet._

He was trying to sleep on the couch. The bed wasn't an option. Too big for one, after a decade or so in racks and pods.

_Smells like her._

He swallowed hard enough he felt his ears pop.

Normally he fought insomnia with work, but EDI had put a stop to that. First she'd gently suggested to the crew that perhaps they should work up a schedule, rotate work and sleep shifts. Then she'd started quoting statistics on the need for rest and recuperation to maintain proper performance levels.

After almost thirty hours of their out of control burn through space, she'd put her foot down. She'd disabled every single console on board and informed them that she wasn't turning them back on again for _at least_ six hours. Adams had blinked blearily at the ceiling for almost five minutes before her ultimatum sunk in and he'd dismissed everyone helping out in engineering.

Joker had argued with her for half an hour.

_"We need to brake! Or not be going so fast in the wrong direction, at least. Shut down the core before we hit something!"_

_"Shutting down the Tantalus Core before we've reconfigured all damaged systems would also shut down life support. You know that. I do not wish to be the only survivor of this trip, Jeff."_

Kaidan let himself sigh, and smile just a little. Most people got tired of arguing with Joker, so he tended to win by default. Except with EDI. EDI never got tired of _anything_.

It would have been fun to watch, if his whole body wasn't aching to get back to work. To fix things so they could do something, so he could go back.

So he could find her.

He couldn't lose her, not again. He'd gone through that once and he wouldn't make it a second time.

Almost didn't make it the first time.

He rolled over on his side, punching his pillow, as if comfort really had anything to do with why he wasn't sleeping. He'd long since developed the soldier's ability to sleep whenever and wherever the opportunity presented itself: metal decks, rocky caves, strapped into a shuttle's jump-seat. Only it had abandoned him tonight, and all he could think about was Noah.

He'd been... comfortable before he met her. Nothing fancy, but he did his job, had a few close friends, did the obligatory family visits with his parents a few times a year. Got recognized by Anderson, picked for the _Normandy_. He'd been so proud. So honored. 

And then the Survivor of Akuze, looking too small and fragile to have made it past boot-camp, much less Thresher Maws, eyes blazing with determination and temper, stormed into his life.

And his heart.

Which had seemed to confuse her as much as it had him, and he wasn't remotely sure how they'd successfully managed to find each other, but they had. Twice, even, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to make the third time the charm and hunt her down again. 

_Somehow. For good this time._


	4. Chapter 4

_Well, any landing you can walk away from, right?_

That's what they said, anyway. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't neat and it sure wasn't in the Handbook of Perfect Starship Landings. But it just about filled the 'walk away from it' criteria. That had to count for something.

Joker turned back to the wreckage. He'd never seen the _SR-2_ in such bad shape. Not even after the dogfight in the galactic core with the Collector Oculi. Chief Engineer Adams appeared from behind a damaged stabilizer, a disgusted look on his face.

"Well, she used to be a beautiful ship," the engineer muttered. He'd been knocked unconscious when the _Normandy_ had been hit by the leading edge of the blast wave. Apparently the 'three cooling conduits and the surge interface' had made one hell of a mess of the engineering deck. Donnelly was still under Dr. Chakwas excellent care. Alone, Daniels had kept power flowing to the ship during that critical time right after the explosion. Joker had made a mental note to get her a medal or something.

"Hey, I did what I could," Joker protested. "Got us all down in one piece. Give me the bad news. Can we get her airborne again?"

"You know the answer to that, Joker. The SR-2 isn't supposed to land on a planet like this. I have no idea if we can get her back in the sky, even if she wasn't so damaged. Our first priority is restoring some semblance of power and getting the QEC back up and running."

"Actually," came a voice from behind them. "Our first order of priority is analysis of the local flora and fauna. If we're stuck here, I want to know what we can and can't eat, before our rations run out."

Joker turned. Alenko was standing behind him, various plants held in a makeshift bag. "I'm going to give these to Dr. Chakwas. She can run the analysis. I've already sent Vega and Liara out to scout the area."

"What are they looking for?"

Alenko shrugged. "Anything they can find. Liara's spent her life exploring strange alien worlds; if there's anything here that we can eat, drink, or use, she'll find it. I sent Vega with her for protection. The girl might be one of the strongest biotics I've ever seen, but when she finds something scientifically interesting, her situational awareness and sense of danger evaporates."

"Sounds like you've thought of everything."

Alenko shrugged again. "Just doing my job. Staying busy. Stops me from thinking." They shared a look, then Kaidan turned to Adams. "What's the report on the QEC, Chief?"

"Need power first. I've got Daniels and a team working on patching up the systems. Right now I'm just hoping that we have enough emergency power to keep EDI online for long enough to help us with solutions."

"So I'm guessing you have a plan, then?" Joker looked at Alenko.

"Vaguely, anyway. Power and supplies first. Always the most important parts of survival. Communications, second. We were travelling at max speed for what? Just over three days?"

"Something like that."

"So, probably only a week's travel at conventional FTL. We get power and comms working again, and we call home. They can come get us."

Joker sighed and looked at his boots. He must have looked crushed, because Adams clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't look like that," the engineer said. "You got us down in one piece. Everyone lived. Sure, we got some bad cases in medbay, but everyone's alive, thanks to you. And it's a habitable planet, at least. Could be worse. We could have crashed on a planet for methane-breathers or something."

 _Yeah. Cold comfort_. Joker sighed again, then snorted at the mental image of the entire crew in salvaged suits, trying to swim through a methane cloud, and shuffled back towards the _Normandy_ in a slightly better mood.

 _My bird. My mess. Should be helping to put her together again._ EDI was in her chair on the flight deck when he got there. He sat down heavily in his pilot's seat. His bones ached. Hell, all of him ached.

"Jeff," she said. "I have analyzed our location as best I can and I believe we're on Rydek's World."

Joker sighed for just a moment, enjoying the feel of the seat, the sound of her voice, without really thinking about the words. _My ship. My girl. One and the same. That's weird. Kinda nice though._

"Wait, what?" He blinked, turning in his seat to look at her once he actually processed what she'd said. "How do you know that? Weren't you supposed to be helping Adams come up with a power solution?"

Her answer, as always, was perfectly factual. It was vaguely disturbing how sexy he found _precision_. "We have been on this planet forty-seven galactic standard hours and nineteen minutes. During that time, it has gone through one of its night cycles. I merely observed the patterns of known constellations of stars that were visible in the sky. I did not devote a large portion of my runtime to calculating our position. I would have done it sooner, but most of the _Normandy's_ external sensors are still offline. In other words, Jeff, I had to wait until it was dark."

"Didn't Rydek's World have a colony?" Joker did some mental calculations in his head. Rydek's World sounded right. A human-inhabitable planet about a weeks standard FTL travel from the Charon relay, it had never been a large colony. Not when there were other, livable planets closer to other relays. It fit the distance estimate Alenko had just made.

"That is correct," she said. "Would you like me to summon the command staff?"

"Yes - No, wait. Just Alenko," Joker said. No reason to drag Liara and Vega back from their scouting trip. Rydek's World! The colony would be sure to have supplies, power converters, all of the things they needed.

"I propose that Major Alenko and I take the shuttle and find what's left," EDI said. "The Reapers passed Rydek's World on their way to Earth, but there were no conclusive reports of what happened here."

There were footsteps on the deck and Kaidan entered the cockpit. "What's this I hear about a salvage expedition?"

"How did-" Joker began but cut himself off. EDI was perfectly capable of having multiple conversations at the same time. "Never mind. EDI thinks she knows where we are. Rydek's World."

"Isn't that a colony world?" asked Alenko.

"That's correct, Major," said EDI. "There is only one officially registered settlement here. Mannis City. By my calculations, it is a few hours away at the shuttle's sublight speeds."

Alenko smiled, small and slight, but a definite improvement over the frozen poker face he'd been displaying since they'd left Earth. "Then what are we waiting for?"


	5. Chapter 5

Inactivity. Noah hated inactivity. She wanted to do something. Get out there and help. Find survivors, coordinate the rebuilding, anything. _Just something_. Anything would be better than being stuck in this bed. It had been almost a week since she woke up here. A week of being fussed over, of poked and prodded and examined by the doctors Hackett had on hand. She'd still rather it have been Dr. Chakwas.

Noah had always been decisive. "There is never a wrong time to do the right thing." She'd read that on some inspirational poster somewhere and as trite as the phrase might have been, it had stuck with her. So she'd always acted. Indecision and inaction were foreign to her. She saw a problem, she decided upon a course of action, and she just went out and did it. Caused more than its fair share of friction between her and -

\- Kaidan...

She forced herself to think his name. To remember him. His face, his smell, his taste. The feel of his lips on hers. To find him, one marine amongst thousands, then be torn apart. After Horizon, she'd resigned herself to the knowledge that there would never be a _them_. Not again. And then fate, or the galaxy, or the war with the reapers had brought them back together. They'd talked. Hesitantly at first. Safe subjects. And then he'd asked her. He'd wanted to know where they stood, how they could move past Horizon. She could still remember how she felt when he'd asked that. He had asked. That meant he wanted to. And so she'd been determined that it would be different, this time. She'd make it work.

And now this.. There were still no reports of the _Normandy's_ fate. She asked Hackett about it daily. At least _he_ was out there, doing something. Managing the salvage, the clean up. It had gotten to the point where he started his comms by saying "Nothing yet, Shepard." She made herself listen to the rest of the reports. Forced herself to focus on what was happening on Earth, in orbit around Earth. That, at least, was something she could do something about. Or she would, once they let her out of this damned hospital bed.

Yeah. She had to do _something_. Any more of this inactivity and she'd go insane. And this time, Kaidan wasn't here to stop her.

~-~

Kaidan wasn't in much of a position to do anything. He was hanging upside-down, suspended by a pair of steel cables, twenty feet up the side of a power reactor. Normally, they'd have grav lifts for this sort of thing.

Instead, he had EDI's mechanical strength and a makeshift climbing harness.

"How many more of these do we need, EDI?"

"Just three more of those, and then we need to salvage mainboards and raw materials. As much as we can fit into the shuttle.

"We can get those from the floor, right?" _Please tell me we can get those from the floor._

"Yes, Major Alenko."

Kaidan sighed and rescanned the area of the reactor he was working on. His omni-tool gave him a detailed readout of all the substructure under the surface, allowing him to easily locate and extract the components he needed. Having to do it upside down was simply an added bonus.

Or something like that, anyway. The 'tool beeped faintly as it found the piece he was looking for. Kaidan unfastened the small access panel and dug around inside the enclosure, his hands working automatically.

The colony itself was a mess. A ruin of smoking buildings and destroyed habitats, it was obvious that the few settlers here had put up quite a fight against the Reaper forces that had come to harvest them. Futile, but they'd made the Reapers pay for every piece of ground they'd taken.

But Alenko had seen what Reapers do to the bodies of humans that fall. For every human that died, a husk could be created. It was one of the things that had made the war more horrifying than anything he'd ever faced before.

He pulled out the last piece of equipment than he needed and signalled EDI to haul him back up to the walkway. _Be nice to be the right way up again._ EDI's artificial strength easily hauled him up over the railing, and while his always-professional mind was already thinking ahead as to the next pieces of equipment they needed to find, a part of him couldn't stop wondering...

_.. what had happened to Shepard?_

~-~

Well, she hadn't gone insane. Seemed like the rest of the world had, though. Reports were coming in daily of new disasters, infrastructure wrecked by the fighting, and by the aftermath. Messages from Thessia, Palaven, Tuchanka...

The relays were down, but the QECs still worked. There weren't a lot of them around the galaxy, but at least they could get some news, and every once in awhile a new one would come online and call in.

The... hologram? that she'd spoken to on the Citadel. She only had vague memories of the conversation. There'd been so much loss of blood. So little coherence. She remembered trying to reason with it. To find another way. Or maybe it had been trying to reason with her. But she'd come all this way, fought so hard to do one thing. And she wasn't going to let any jumped up holographic sentient AI with delusions of godhood try to fend her off. Not when she was so close.

She remembered firing at the control conduit, feeling the anger flow through her, growing stronger with each round that left the reliable Carnifex heavy sidearm that had never left her side.

And then.. Nothing. Not until she woke up here, in this whitewashed room with the bright lights and soft sheets and doctors and nurses everywhere. Been here for a week, now. A week of nothing but listening to Hackett's daily reports. At least the nurses were saying that she was going to be released soon.

Soon couldn't come soon enough for Noah.


	6. Chapter 6

The door to the comms room slid open, and Joker and Alenko were greeted by the sight of the Comm Specialist ordering their Chief Engineer around. "No. Don't plug it in there, plug it over _there_." Adams just grinned as Traynor aimed him at the proper connection. This was her baby, after all, not his. 

He shrugged towards the new arrivals and waved an arm at the mass of exposed cables and conduits. "I know, I know," he said. "We're getting there. Traynor assures me you brought back all the right stuff. Just takes time for us to plug it all in. Whatever hit us sure did a number on the old girl."

Joker said, bluntly, "The citadel exploded."

\--

Hackett said, "Frankly, I'm amazed you're still alive." He was in Noah's hospital room. First time she'd seen him in the flesh since she woke up. She only guessed at the seven hundred other important things that weren't getting done because he was here with her.

Noah pulled a face. "I'm hard to kill, Admiral. We both know that."

Hackett curled a lip. "What the hell happened up there, Shepard? It's been a week. I think I'm allowed to debrief you now. Besides, they said they were going to let you out today."

"That's why you're here? Did you find Anderson- Anderson's body?"

He nodded. "Eventually. That chunk we found you on was pretty big. He was a couple of levels down from you. That entire section looked.. Well, no one had ever seen it before. We've got incomplete maps and architectural diagrams of a lot of the citadel, but that section didn't appear on any of them."

"I- I'm not sure," she said, frowning. "It was the top of the Citadel Spire, I think. At least, that's what it looked like when the arms opened."

Hackett threw her a Look. "Ah. Yes. I was about to ask you about that. But we should start at the beginning. You made it to the beam, I assume?"

\--

"I guess she did." Alenko shrugged, eyes shadowed as he glanced briefly down toward the floor before continuing. "We saw the beam vanish, and then all the Reapers took off and headed back into orbit. Coates and I set up a camp and I sent some teams out to look for her and Anderson. That's when you called me, Joker."

Joker nodded. Eased himself up onto the conference table. _Easier on the legs._ "Well, as you know, we knew she was on the Citadel by then. EDI knew, anyway. And she told me. So we came down to get you. All of you."

Adams grunted. He was doing something under a console.

"I hope this works, then," Traynor was frowning, staring at the various components scattered about, head tilted as she reviewed the next step in the repairs. "I'd hate to never know what happened."

\--

Shepard closed her eyes, shook her head slowly. "I- I don't remember much, Admiral. I remember waking up.. I think it was a Keeper maintenance tunnel. There were bodies, everywhere. The bodies that they'd been collecting from Earth. Anderson had either gone up before me, or maybe he woke up before me. I don't know how long I was out."

"And then?" Hackett prompted.

"Well, our comms worked, inside the .. wherever we are. So I followed the corridor, found Anderson. And the Illusive Man. We- talked. I.. He- killed himself. Eventually"

\--

"I guess that's when the arms opened." Adams finished plugging one complicated piece of equipment into another complicated piece of equipment as Traynor crawled underneath the consoles to adjust all the new settings. "Wish I'd seen it. I didn't see it three years ago, either. You people up front get all the best views."

"Ringside seats, baby." Joker grinned. "We figured that must have been the Commander. So we called Hackett, to ask him for permission to go in after her."

Alenko murmured. "Tell him, you mean."

Joker shrugged, grinned. "Always better to ask for forgiveness than permission, Major. We would have, too, if the fighting hadn't stopped."

\--

"What? The fighting stopped?" Noah blinked. The last thing she could remember was seeing the ships and the Reapers, the furious battle outside the citadel. And then.. the power conduit, and the Carnifex pistol was somehow in her hand..

"Thirty seconds or so. It was like they were waiting."

"For what?"

\--

"How should I know why they stopped shooting? You think I can predict what a Reaper's thinking?" Joker snorted. "I just wanted to take advantage of the lull to finish hacking that damn dock."

"In hindsight, getting that close to the Citadel may not have been the best idea," Alenko remarked mildly.

Adams just shook his head, used to their grumbling.

"I think that's everything," Traynor interrupted gently. "Just need to reboot the system, and we'll be ready and able to phone home. Audio only, but it should work. Hopefully."

Joker grinned. "That's the best news I've heard all day," he said, then turned back to Alenko. "Don't be blaming me. How was I supposed to know what was going to happen next?"

\--

"That's right," Hackett nodded at Shepard. "It exploded."

"I.. I shot the power conduit. It was the only way to destroy them. I didn't want- .. The geth... and everyone else caught in the shockwave.. The relays." She stopped, still trying to imagine how they'd reorganize the entire galaxy without them, how they'd get the fleets back home. "You have to believe me." Noah looked up at Hackett from her bed, eyes searching his face for .. something. A sign of recognition. Acceptance. Anything.

"I do, Commander. And it worked." His eyes looked right at her, never flinching. "It activated the Crucible, using the Citadel, just as the AI told you. First it sent that shockwave through our system. And then it sent a pulse. An energy beam. Used the relays themselves to stop the Reapers. All of them. You did the right thing."

"And you said that shockwave is what hit the _Normandy_?"

\--

"It hit everyone," Joker was enjoying his captive audience as the software finished running in the background. "Earth, the fleets, everyone. I spun the _Normandy_ around the instant the Citadel started to fracture. Punched full burn."

Engineer Adams rubbed at the bandage still around his bruised head. "I remember," he said wryly. "Or well, I don't remember. Interface seventeen blew and knocked me on my butt. Daniels said I hit my head on a console."

"I almost fell into the galaxy map," Traynor smiled wryly. "Luckily there were fewer pieces flying around, or I might have joined you in med-bay. It was a rather... bumpy ride."

"Hey. Nobody died." 

"We hope." Alenko's voice was soft, his whisper filling the space between the wires and bulkheads.

"System reboot completed." EDI's smooth tones ended the silence that had settled as they waited. "The QEC may be activated whenever you are ready."

\--

"It was twelve hours or so." Hackett said.

"Before you found me?"

"Yeah, something like that. There was some weird signal coming from your armor. One of my comms guys spotted it-" Hackett stopped mid sentence. Tilted his head. Then his eyes widened. "Well, I'll be..." he said. "Patch them through. Now."

"What's that?" Noah asked.

"A new QEC just came online. Audio only," Hackett said. "But I think you're going to want to hear this one. Yes. Patch it into the comms in this room."

The signal was faint. Crackly. But audible. And that irreverent, insouciant voice was unmistakable.

".... this is the _SSV Normandy SR-2_ , calling Alliance Command. Can you read me, over? This is the _SSV Normandy SR-2_ , calling Alliance Command. Can you read me, over? This is the _SSV..._ "

Hackett looked at Shepard, a faint smile playing across his weathered face. His eyes lit up and he gave her a little gesture. _All yours, Commander_.

Noah took a breath, desperate to keep her voice calm. _They're alive._ He's _alive._ "This is Commander Shepard of the _SSV Normandy SR-2_ . Where the hell did you go with my ship, Joker?"

~-~

 _"No, it's_ Shepard. _Yes. That Shepard. The brass said she wants a ship. Yes, she's still alive. The fastest ship we have."_

_"You heard it right, Kenneth. The Commander's coming to get us. I told you she'd never leave us stranded."_

_"Yes. That's what I said. This is Admiral Hackett. I want the fastest cruiser you have available, prepped and ready for a two-week trip and I want it yesterday."_

_"Ha. We contact her, and the first thing she does is yell at me? Yeah. I think she's okay."_

_"A week or so. Maybe five days. Nothing's as fast as the_ Normandy _. But they know we're on Rydek's World now. Now it's just a matter of time."_


	7. Chapter 7

"... so then we talked Hackett into letting us come look for you," Joker was saying. Shepard was standing on the _Normandy's_ flight deck. Her _Normandy's_ flight deck. She never thought she'd stand here again. She was almost not paying attention to the pilot, but with an effort of will, she forced herself to focus.

 _Managed not to pace a hole through the deckplates on our way here, I can manage one more conversation, if he'd just hurry up._ "I get that, Joker," Noah cut in. "What I wanted to know is how you knew I was on the Citadel in the first place."

Joker looked at EDI. EDI looked back at Joker. "I believe I am responsible for that, Shepard," the AI said.

Noah blinked. It wasn't often that she was nonplussed. "What?"

Joker sighed. "Right before you did your suicide mission thing, running towards that beam, EDI planted Miranda's tracker on your armor."

Noah blinked again. "Miranda's track- … The one we used to track Kai Leng?"

EDI nodded. "The same," she said, in that familiar factual tone. "I retrieved it from his body after we defeated him in Cerberus' base. Then I planted it on you before you stormed the beam with Hammer. I apologize for not informing you about it at the time, but you did tell me that I should use my initiative and start thinking for myself." The synthetic voice didn't sound particularly apologetic, but with EDI you could never tell.

"Then that's how Hackett found me..." Noah mused, almost _sotto voce_. Then she looked at EDI. "I don't ever want you bugging my armor, or me, without my permission again, EDI. You understand?"

"Yes, Shepard."

Shepard's lip curled, as she finished, "... but I'm glad you did."

"So am I," came a voice from the _Normandy's_ airlock. _That voice._ His voice. She'd recognize his voice anywhere. Hearing him over a static-filled and shaky QEC channel had been one thing. But here and now, in the flesh? Definitely something else entirely.

Noah turned, feeling like she was caught in a slow-motion vid, feeling all the things she never knew how to say catch in her throat as she swallowed. There he was. _Finally_. He was standing there, framed against the light from the open airlock. He wasn't smiling. The situation was beyond smiles, beyond relief, beyond any pale imitations of happiness that she thought she'd felt before. His look devoured her. Transfixed her. That look said _I'm never losing you again_.

He said, very simply, "Noah..." Somehow he'd packed all the things she never knew how to say into the sound of her name, and she closed her eyes to stop herself from crying, or laughing. When she opened them, he was still there. He hadn't vanished. This wasn't a dream. _He's here. He's real. Mine. All_ mine.

"... Kaidan." The word escaped her lips. There was nothing else for her to say.

And then, somehow, she was in his arms, and Joker and EDI and the rest of the _Normandy_ had faded away and it was just her and him and the feel of his lips on hers, his hand in her hair and his arms around her, and for that brief moment in time everything was right with the universe. The destruction, the devastation, the trillions of lives lost were forgotten in that one perfect moment. Reality would have its time afterwards. It always did. Perfect moments never last forever. But sometimes their memories do.

She was Commander Shepard, the Hero of the Citadel. She had traveled beyond the Omega-4 Relay and returned. She had saved the galaxy and she had defeated the Reapers. But more importantly, right now, she was Noah Shepard, and she was bringing Kaidan Alenko home.

And maybe, in that one perfect moment, that's all that mattered.


End file.
